Government to keep league table on how councils are performing on social housing

Irish Times

9 hours ago

The Government will maintain an effective league table of how the 31 councils are performing on the delivery of social housing under a plan to go before Cabinet today.
Minister for Housing James Browne will bring proposals for regular publication of data on the performance of councils in constructing social housing on local authority land, especially on the delivery of 'own-build' homes.
While almost half of the city and county councils exceeded their Housing for All social housing targets last year, all local authorities performed poorly when it came to the self-build targets.
A total of 5,065 homes were self-built by local authorities between 2022 and 2024, only 18 per cent of the target of 27,400. Two councils, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and Sligo, reached only 10 per cent of the target while the three worst-performing councils on self-build were Cork County (8 per cent), Louth (4 per cent) and Kildare (three per cent).
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Social homes are delivered in a number of ways under the Housing for All programme: self-build by the council; buying homes in turnkey conditions; acquiring them from non-profit approved housing agencies; or having them transferred from developers under Part V of the Planning Act.
In terms of overall provision, including all modes of delivering social houses, the best performers between 2022 and 2024 were Laois (189 per cent), Meath (169 per cent) and Wicklow (142 per cent). The local authorities with the lowest figures compared to target were Dublin City Council (49 per cent) and Donegal County Council (46 per cent).
Mr Browne is expected to tell ministerial colleagues that releasing the data in this format will make the performances of councils in delivering social homes more transparent and more accountable. It will also be received as a signal to councils with lower delivery to improve their performance.
Mr Browne held a housing summit in early June during which he told local authority chief executives and planners that he wanted a 'serious scaling up' of delivery of social homes.
He also agreed with executives that the existing four-stage process for approval was cumbersome. It is understood he will seek approval from Cabinet to reduce that to a one-step process, which will become operational from September this year.
Standardised designs for new builds are also being mandated and more modern methods of construction will be incorporated. Mr Browne is expected to say that these measures will streamline the process.
The Minister is also seeking approval for a Bill to extend the planning permission time periods for developments delayed by Judicial Review challenges.
Tánaiste Simon Harris will tell Cabinet today that with just a week to go there is positive momentum in EU-US trade talks – but that 10 per cent baseline tariffs in some sectors will pose challenges for the Irish economy and businesses.
Tánaiste Simon Harris is expected to tell the Cabinet meeting that there is a 'growing belief' at European Union level that agreement can be reached on a trade deal with the United States by the July 9th deadline.
He will say that any deal will have to be assessed against what exclusions from the US-imposed 10 per cent tariff can be secured, including scope for zero-for-zero arrangements for key sectors, which Ireland has identified as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and aviation.
In recent talks with Ambassador Jamieson Greer, Mr Harris raised sectoral tariffs on pharmaceuticals and underlined the interconnected nature of the sector on both sides of the Atlantic.
In a speech to be delivered later today at an event marking exactly one year until Ireland takes up the EU presidency in the second half of 2026, the Tánaiste will say that the ongoing trade talks 'will fundamentally alter the union's relationship with the United States'.
Minister for Higher Education James Lawless will note that construction contracts have been signed for five new buildings in university campuses, worth €380 million and being delivered under public-private partnership contracts.
They will be located at the Waterford and Carlow campuses of South East Technical University, the Galway and Letterkenny campuses of Atlantic Technical University, and the Limerick campus of Technological University of the Shannon .